Andrew Baisley

Unplugged by Scott Newkirk | Posted by CJWHO.com


Unplugged by Scott Newkirk | Posted by CJWHO.com


Unplugged by Scott Newkirk | Posted by CJWHO.com


Unplugged by Scott Newkirk | Posted by CJWHO.com


Unplugged by Scott Newkirk | Posted by CJWHO.com

Taco Bell barrels forward in its quest to dominate the land of bizarre stoner foods with the debut of its long-awaited breakfast menu. The chain announced its opening lineup up of just-barely-Mexican breakfast offerings today, adding to the already released Cinnabon Sugar Bombs Delights. The menu makes its Nachos Bell Grande debut on March 27th—mark your calendars! [ more › ]

There's something magical about restaurant food prepared right in front of you, from the humble tableside guacamole to the fiery drama of Korean barbecue. It was this fascination with fun eating experiences that saw Gothamist staffers trekking out to Flushing's Little Lamb earlier this week to experience another form of restaurant theatrics: Hot Pot. [ more › ]

There's nothing less sexy than tech public relations, except maybe incessant lewd texts from your coworkers. According to a just-filed lawsuit against OpenCommunications, PR flacks have combined the two, showering a colleague with sleazy advances and unwanted groping.

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When we think about Williamsburg, it's easy to forget that there exist issues other than housing and gentrification, issues that don't even involve hipsters at all. A new video from "social news network" Vocativ explores the world of female day laborers employed by neighborhood Hasids, and some of the uncomfortable and often exploitative interactions that occur therein. [ more › ]

A new company is hoping that some New Yorkers and New Yorkers in need of a clean bathroom will pay big bucks for a comfort break. And by big, we mean $8 for a day pass, plus a $15 sign-up fee! [ more › ]

Driving on Route-25a through East Shoreham, you’d never guess there was anything unusual about the gated road heading off toward the coast.

But go down a ways…

…and suddenly, it’ll appear through the trees…

Long Island’s only nuclear power plant, closed and shuttered since it was decommissioned in 1994.

Today, it sits completely empty, a relic of 1970s design permanently frozen in time.

A month ago, I heard that the now vacant Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant was available as a filming location, and I immediately set up a tour. It’d certainly be the first nuclear power plant to have in my files, and I was absolutely fascinated to see what still remained inside.

Construction began on Shoreham’s GE Mark II Boiling Water Reactor in 1973 and finished 12 years later in 1985, when it received its testing license and began operating at 5% capacity. That’s as far as the plant ever got.

Public opposition had been growing steadily during this period, in large part due to Three Mile Island’s partial meltdown in 1979 and the Chernobyl tragedy in 1986. The state and county eventually sided with the opposition and refused to approve the plant’s emergency escape route plan, which prevented it from obtaining an operating license.

In 1992, the $6 Billion facility was sold to the state for $1 (the cost was passed onto LI tax payers as a 3% surcharge on electric bills). The two-year decommissioning process commenced, the first time in US history that a licensed commercial nuclear reactor would be dismantled.

The process was completed in 1994 following the removal of 5 million pounds of radioactive waste and 560 irradiated fuel rod assemblies. The plant has been vacant and dormant ever since.

As we arrived at the doors to the facility, I noticed the first of what would turn out to be hundreds of warning signs still posted throughout.

We headed in.

As walked through the first few industrial rooms and corridors, my initial thought was that the plant seemed massive once you were inside.

It only took about four or five turns before I was completely lost.

Every once in a while, we’d come to a large open shaft going up to the roof, giving a sense of the height.

Despite being decommissioned, equipment is everywhere, some of it still in use.

I will admit, it takes a lot of self-control not to reach out and touch the thousands of buttons and levers you pass at every turn.

Also, there are pipes everywhere. I feel like I saw every possible variation of pipe and duct during my tour.

Finally, there are a lot of safety stations still in place, like this area radiation monitor.

Ditto the chemical burn first aid stations…

…and these cabinets containing emergency breathing apparatus:

After heading deeper into the plant, we came to a pair of double doors. We stepped through…

…and traveled back in time to when modern computers did not exist.

This is the reactor control room, an absolutely mind-boggling assortment of buttons, knobs, switches, lights, levers and cranks.

The equipment spans three entire walls…

…along with several work stations in the middle of the room. Look at that computer!

The desk calendar was last changed on November 8, 1994:

One of my favorite control arrays was this desk…

…which features a colorfully eye-pleasing – and easy to read! – set of lines connecting various systems with their indicator lights:

More switches…

…gauges…

…monitors…

…and more switches:

I was also intrigued by this grid of buttons, which depicts the status of the fuel rod assembly. You’ll note the word SCRAM on many of them, industry-speak for an emergency shutdown of a reactor.

Nearby, this diagram appears to monitor the overall reactor status, with more indicator lights and colorful connector lines:

Lining the top of the equipment stations were several tables of error messages, which I imagine you prayed would never light up:

The operator at this station was lucky to get a big-screen monitor:

Make your System Op quick calls here:

If you look at the rug, you’ll see a darker stripe running along the perimeter of the room. I was told that this was referred to as the “velvet rope,” and NO ONE was allowed to set foot into it without authorization from the office overlooking the control room.

This is that office:

From the control room, we headed down several more tunnels toward the reactor…

…passing more warning signs.

The Shoreham reactor was encased in two layers of containment. The outer layer, or secondary containment, is a 7-foot thick wall of reinforced concrete, traversed via this passage:

To enter the primary containment area, one would have to climb into this claustrophobic tube and securely close the enormous steel door…

…then wait on that bench for the door at the other end to open:

A phone for communicating with the outside world while sealed inside:

We stepped through the inner door…

The tour continues – Click here to go to the next page!

We’d like to give a quick status on the new Premium plans and thank you all for the support.  It’s been a little over a week since we introduced the new paid accounts and the support from our community has been terrific.  That said, we still have a ways to go to meet our goals and are working diligently to address as much of your input as possible.

Here are answers to many of the frequent questions that we’ve been receiving over the past week.

Q: Why no Paypal?

A: We just released Paypal payments. You can now use either secure credit card payments through Stripe, or checkout using Paypal.

Q: Why didn’t you do ads?

A: As we mentioned in our previous posts, we’re heavily committed to the open web and feel that ads put our neutrality in jeopardy.  We haven’t completely ruled out future advertising for non-premium accounts, but we will do everything possible to avoid that decision.

Q: What happens when my grace period or trial expires and I’m over the free feed limit?

A: If you’re over the limit and your trial is expired, then your feeds will stop updating. We won’t ever lock you out of The Old Reader, and you’ll always be able to see what your friends are sharing, and you’ll always be able to export your subscriptions to OPML.

Q: Does “6 months of post storage” extend to shared items and comments?

A: We keep shared items and comments forever. Those are never removed. The only posts that will ever be removed are the read and unread posts that you haven’t shared, liked, or starred.

Q: If feed refreshes are shared, how do the tiered feed refresh speeds work?

A: We do our best to store and fetch only unique feeds, so we fetch new posts for a feed once, and deliver the new posts for each user who is subscribed to that feed.

So, if one of the users who is subscribed to that feed decides to become a premium user, all of the feeds that user is subscribed to will begin updating faster. Any free users subscribed to the same feeds will get the faster refresh time as well.

Q: What is the Instapaper and Readability integration?

A: Instapaper and Readability integration is setup, so that if you go into settings and authorize those services, any time you Star a post, it will be shared to to those services. You don’t need to click “Sent to” and be redirected off to the other site. Just click Star and it all happens in the background.

Q: Where’s the bookmarklet?

A: The bookmarklet is a high priority feature for us. We think it’s a very valuable feature to be able to take any article you come across and put it into The Old Reader for later reading. It’s a bit of a big change, since now we don’t have the concept of a post without a feed, but we’re on it and it will be available soon.

Thanks for using The Old Reader!

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Tremor Video, Inc. (NYSE:TRMR), a leading provider of technology-driven video advertising solutions, today announced financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2013.

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Anyone else’s block look like this?

Several blocks of Sixth Avenue in the 20s are currently closed off to drivers and pedestrians due to an electrical malfunction that's sending stray voltage into sidewalk grates and doorknobs of nearby buildings. [ more › ]

A Georgia resident who stole a box truck and then crashed into a M14 bus a few blocks away, killing the bus driver, was slapped with a slew of charges yesterday. Domonic Whilby, 22, was charged with manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, criminal trespass, criminal mischief and felony assault. [ more › ]

Real life is the game that – literally – everyone is playing. But it can be tough. This is your guide.

Basics

You might not realise, but real life is a game of strategy. There are some fun mini-games – like dancing, driving, running, and sex – but the key to winning is simply managing your resources.

Most importantly, successful players put their time into the right things. Later in the game money comes into play, but your top priority should always be mastering where your time goes.

Childhood

Life begins when you’re assigned a random character and circumstances:

The first 15 years or so of life are just tutorial missions, which suck. There’s no way to skip these.

Young adult stage

As a young player, you’ll have lots of time and energy, but almost no experience. You’ll find most things – like the best jobs, possessions and partners – are locked until you get some.

This is the time to level up your skills quickly. You will never have so much time and energy again.

Now that you’re playing properly, your top priority is to assign your time as well as possible. Every single thing you do affects your state and your skills:

This may sound simple, but the problem is you won’t always know what tasks to choose, and your body won’t always obey your commands. Let’s break it down.

How to obey your own commands

Many players find that when they choose to do something – say “go to the gym” – their body ignores them completely.

This is not a bug. Everybody has a state, which you can’t see directly, but looks something like this:

If your state gets too low in one area, your body will disobey your own instructions until your needs are met. Try studying when you’re exhausted and hungry, and watch your concentration switch to Twitter.

Your willpower level is especially important. Willpower fades throughout the day, and is replenished slightly by eating, and completely by a good night’s sleep. When your willpower is low, you are only able to do things you really want to.

Every decision you have to make costs willpower, and decisions where you have to suppress an appealing option for a less appealing one (e.g. exercise instead of watch TV) require a lot of willpower.

There are various tricks to keep your behaviour in line:

1. Keep your state high. If you’re hungry, exhausted, or utterly deprived of fun, your willpower will collapse. Ensure you take consistently good care of yourself.
2. Don’t demand too much willpower from one day. Spread your most demanding tasks over multiple days, and mix them in with less demanding ones.
3. Attempt the most important tasks first. This makes other tasks more difficult, but makes your top task more likely.
4. Reduce the need to use willpower by reducing choices. If you’re trying to work on a computer that can access Facebook, you’ll need more willpower because you’re constantly choosing the hard task over the easy one. Eliminate such distractions.

A key part of playing the game is balancing your competing priorities with the state of your body. Just don’t leave yourself on autopilot, or you’ll never get anything done.

Choosing the right tasks

Choosing the right tasks at the right time is most of the game. Some tasks mostly affect your state, e.g.

Others mostly affect your skills:

You need to put time into things that ensure a healthy state – like food and sleep – to keep your willpower high. And then you need to develop your skills with what you have left.

Some skills are more valuable than others. Good ones can open up whole paths like a tech tree:

Others are dead ends:

Combinations of skills are the most effective. It’s very hard to max out one skill to be the best – in fact, that’s often impossible. But it’s much easier to get pretty decent at lots of related skills that amount to something bigger, e.g.

See how psychology just helped you become both rich and attractive? You should study that.

Where you live

Your environment has a constant impact on your stats, skills, and your chances of levelling up.

It’s possible to play the game well almost anywhere, but it’s a lot easier in certain places. If you’re female and in the wrong country, for example, you can’t unlock many achievements.

The odds of anyone being born in their optimal location are virtually zero, so research your options, and consider moving early. Location is a multiplier to all of your skills and states.

Finding a partner

Attraction is a complex mini-game in itself, but mostly a byproduct of how you’re already playing. If you have excellent state and high skills, you’re far more attractive already. A tired, irritable, unskilled player is not appealing, and probably shouldn’t be looking for a relationship.

Early in the game it can be common to reject and be rejected by other players. This is normal, but unfortunately it can drain your state, as most players don’t handle rejection or rejecting well. You’ll need to expend willpower to keep going, and willpower is replenished by sleep, so give it time.

80% of finding someone comes down to being your most attractive self, which – like so much in life – just means putting your time in the right places. If you’re exercising, socialising, well nourished and growing in your career, you will radiate attraction automatically. The remaining 20% is simply putting yourself in places where you can meet the right people.

Money money money

Later in the game you’ll have to manage a new resource called ‘money’. Most players will find money increases throughout the early game, but that this actually introduces more problems, not less.

The most important rule of money is never to borrow it, except for things that earn you more back. For example, education or a mortgage can be worthwhile (but are not necessarily so, depending on the education or the mortgage). Borrowing to buy new shoes is not.

Depending on your financial ambitions, here are a few strategies to bear in mind:

1. Not fussed about money. The low-stress strategy: simply live within your means and save a little for a rainy day. Be sure to make the best of all the time you save though, or you’ll regret it.
2. Well off. Choose a career and environment carefully, and be prepared to move often to move up. You’ll need to invest heavily in matching skills, which will cost you time, and be careful not to abuse your state or you’ll burn out.
3. Mega rich. Start your own business. It’s almost impossible to get rich working for someone else. Riches do not come from work alone, they come from  owning things – assets – that pay back more than they cost, and your own company is a powerful asset you can create from scratch. Compound your winnings into more assets, and eventually they can remove your need to work at all.

Later life

Your options change as the game progresses. Marriage and children will reduce your time and energy, and introduce more random elements into the game (“Emergency diaper change!”). This makes it harder to develop yourself as quickly.

Older characters usually have more skills, resources and experience, unlocking quests that were previously impossible, like “owning a house”, or “writing a (good) novel”.

All players die after about 29,000 days, or 80 years. If your stats and skills are good, you might last a little longer. There is no cheat code to extend this.

At the start of the game, you had no control over who you were or your environment. By the end of the game that becomes true again. Your past decisions drastically shape where you end up, and if you’re happy, healthy, fulfilled – or not – in your final days there’s far less you can do about it.

That’s why your strategy is important. Because by the time most of us have figured life out, we’ve used up too much of the best parts.

Now you’d best get playing.

[UPDATE BELOW] A tipster sent in the above photo, which was taken at the East 180th Street Yard in the Bronx two weeks ago and shows one subway car tagged up like it's the goddamn 1980s or something. The maintenance facility is "currently home of the R142s for the 5 train"... and also this beauty. [ more › ]

NY1 is crushing it on the storm graphics.

(via)

-SR, S360

Not too long ago, Mu Ramen opened as a nighttime pop up in a bagel shop on Vernon Boulevard. The menu, which features steamed buns and three different types of ramen, was a hit. Now Chopsticks and Marrow reports the exciting news that Mu Ramen will move into a permanent location. From the Mu Ramen website: “We have found our location in LIC!! Horray!!! Until the new location is built and ready, our pop up’s hours will vary from week to week. we apologize for the inconvenience but we will keep you updated on twitter, instagram, FB and our website. Thank you for your encouragement and support! stay tuned…” There are no details yet on the new location or the opening date. Needless to say, we’re looking forward to this one! Mu Ramen’s U & I Will Make You Say, ‘My, my, my.” [Chopsticks and Marrow] Photo via Facebook … Read More

lepostitjaune:

ANNA VON SCHEWEN  Kovilan Summerhouse, Stockholm Archipelago. Sweden 1998

© Anna Von Schewen

America has been licking its lips and tenderly sharpening its pitchforks all week, gearing up for a good old fashioned Roman-style arena match between noted wedding crasher DMX and the most hated man in the country, George Zimmerman. Alas, no one will be micturated upon in a boxing ring anytime soon: the promoter who organized the bout has canceled the event due to a sudden bout of common sense and decency. [ more › ]

Posting secrets anonymously is an old idea on the internet, but Secret is special for one reason: so far it's completely taken over by gossiping techies, early adopters with lots of bile to unload. It's part therapy, part confession, part defamation, and it's a lot of fun to eavesdrop.

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Mayor de Blasio is sticking to his progressive guns and has confirmed that he won't march in this year's St. Patrick's Day Parade, because the parade doesn't allow gay groups to march. He told reporters, "I will be participating in a number of other events to honor the Irish heritage of this city and the contributions of Irish-Americans, but I simply disagree with the organizers of that parade in their exclusion of some individuals in this city." [ more › ]

This morning, the world woke up to two "humbled" letters from two chief executives: Satya Nadella and Mark Zuckerberg. But you didn't need to read their words that closely because the CEOs proceeded to repeat them—almost verbatim—on camera not long after.

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Judgment Day has come to the cutting edge dining scene in LIC, as The New York Times renders its verdict on M. Wells Steakhouse.  In the better-late-than-never category, I’m happy to report that the review is positive.  Net-net: get the pickled smelts, pork chops, and sweetbreads, skip the burger and steaks.  What, were you expecting something conventional?  Try the Corner Bistro instead.

Fred and Barney Would Feel Right at Home – NYT’s gives M. Wells it’s seal of approval as a “Critic’s Pick”

Breweries Tap Into Queens – Yawn, Crain’s weighs in on the Queens brewing scene for the umpteenth time

A Piece of Beauty for LIC – all about an artists redoing of a lobby of a building by Courts Square

New Purves Street Residential Buildings Renderings – 122 units of luxurious bliss, followed by a 148 unit building, what else?  Slated as rentals for the time being

150M Square Feet of LIC Retail Hits Market – somewhere up by Northern Boulevard

The View Sells Out – Daltrey and Townsend to tour again

 

 

 

The post NEW YORK TIMES REVIEWS M. WELLS STEAKHOUSE appeared first on LICtalk.

Les Ateliers Guyon has designed a group of benches that are located along the bank of the St. Lawrence River in the City of Verchères, Canada.

Design: Les Ateliers Guyon
Photography: Félix Guyon